Читать книгу Whispers of Rest in the Storm - Matthea Browning Glass - Страница 7

Day 3

Rest in Forgiveness

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that’s why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, loves little. Luke 7:47

For most of us the idea that our many sins can be forgiven is incompatible with reason. I know what I have done. You know what you have done. We are more familiar with punishment and condemnation.

Many Christians continue to carry around feelings of shame and defeat from our sinful past. Sometimes in unbelief we continue to flog ourselves with this past to pay the debt we think we deserve. God is a just, a merciful, and a grace-filled Father. Justice is when God gives us what we deserve. In His mercy, He sent Jesus to take upon Himself the sins of the whole world, satisfying His wrath, giving to Jesus what we deserved. Grace is when God gives us what we don’t deserve, forgiveness. God knew that we could never pay our debts, so He did it for us! Why do we now think that we can make ourselves right by beating ourselves up, by condemning ourselves in our thoughts, or by punishing ourselves by how we live?

The truth is that we don’t deserve forgiveness. But, if someone wanted to give us a gift of a million dollars, would we refuse it? Would we keep carrying around our poverty with the gift of great wealth sitting there? Accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is accepting His gift of forgiveness. Learning to rest in His forgiveness is allowing the old failures to be buried with Christ (Romans 6:4) and living in the reality that we are raised with Christ to live a new life (Romans 6:10).

Sometimes we continue to battle feelings of guilt and shame because we have not asked others for forgiveness and worked to make amends for the wrong we did. Proverbs 14:9 says, “Only fools mock at making amends, but good will is found among the upright.” Making amends doesn’t pay for our wrongs; they demonstrate our true repentance.

Sometimes we battle feelings of guilt and shame because we must expose old hurts to the Light. Some stories need to be shared in order to heal. Allowing the Light into our deepest hurts exposes them to the truth. We are not innately bad and deserve abuse. Someone sinned against us. Let that person own her/his sin. We can stop carrying it, if we give it to Jesus. We have carried the secret for long enough. Telling Jesus is the first step to finding healing. He knows it. On the cross the weight of every sin was laid on Him. The weight of our secret was already laid on Him on the cross (Isaiah 53). He took it, and paid for it with His blood. Now it’s up to us to put it down and let Him carry it.

Learning to rest in forgiveness will free us from the bondage of working for salvation. When we know we are forgiven, we can love much because we know that we are forgiven much. God’s forgiveness is not reasonable to people who cannot pay for their sins, but Isaiah 53:10 says that it pleased the Lord to crush Jesus for our redemption.

Let’s stop condemning ourselves for what God has forgiven, especially since that forgiveness spilt the blood of Christ Jesus. One definition of rest is to cease work or movement.

Learning to rest in forgiveness is allowing Jesus to carry the weight of sin. Let us cease trying to earn forgiveness and rest in the forgiveness given by living “In Christ.”